I wanted to post something about Brian as he was an influence in my caving and someone that I looked up to.
In the spring of 1985, I was a college student at A & M far removed from the caving going on. My only connection to the world was a stack of Texas Caver magazines that I had acquired. Brian Burton's name appeared in many of the reports that I was reading. I later met Brian at several TCR's and a few grotto meetings that I attended in Dallas or Austin. There were trips like Honeycreek were we sat around the campfire and probably some TSA gatherings in places like Bandera and Powells. Around 1989, he let join one of his trips to the Sierra Madres. When I arrived at his house, I was surprised because most of the cavers I associated with had to borrow a car from their parents in order to go caving, and this guy lived in a beautiful house and had a real job. Anyways, we went to Nacimiento del Rio Sabinas and did some cliff-diving in our birthday suits. We all spent the rest of the week bushwacking towards some sinkholes that were uphill from this spring. The sinkholes didn't seem to do anything, so we drove up the mountain to the village of Julilo and then on to an area just east of a well known cave called "La Joya de Salas." We camped up there for 2 days and ridgewalked. Brian stuck his head in every hole and even checked out a blind pit that was in the book "Caves of the Interamerican Highway." I think we were all prepared for a deep pit or cave had we found it. My memories of the trip are now faded. I remember being in a 20 meter blind pit, and thats about it. I believe a few weeks later he took me on a caving trip to Minas Viejas, or maybe we did that on the way home. These 2 trips led to meeting other cavers that I became close friends with. Years passed and I lost track of Brian. But one thing that he did for me, whether he intended to or not, was to convince me to never own a Ford again. I think Brian's last post to cavetex was an interesting web article he found concerning homemade sandals. Here it is again: http://www.hollowtop.com/sandals.htm The End _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list Texascavers@texascavers.com http://mail.texascavers.com/mailman/listinfo/texascavers_texascavers.com
